


The Only Only Child

by bofurrific



Series: Hobbit Drabbles [50]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, I don't think he was an asshole, Miscarriage, also I like bungo ok, it hurts to write such things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:26:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bofurrific/pseuds/bofurrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme Fill</p><p>Why Bilbo doesn't have any siblings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Only Child

The first time is happens, it is a tragedy. Belladonna doesn't leave her bed for weeks, lays there and sobs until she has no breath, worries that Bungo will leave her because these things don't happen to hobbits. But Bungo is a good hobbit, a respectable hobbit, and he takes the time to put his bride back together, kisses her tear-streaked cheeks and holds her long into the night, and eventually they move past it.

But it happens again. She carries her longer, almost full term, before the child stops moving in Belladonna's womb and the midwife shakes her head and tuts and apologizes and a procedure has to be done to remove the dead fauntling that Belladonna won't even think about. And she sits in the rain for long hours until Bungo comes home, and he knows the moment he looks at her. They almost stop trying.

It is two years later that Bilbo is born, and he is their miracle. Belladonna weeps with joy and refuses to put him down, clings to him and cries because she's not broken, she's given Bungo a son. And all is well in their little family of three.

Belladonna thinks the curse must have been broken, because she finds herself with child again when Bilbo is still very young, but she wakes one morning with fresh blood on her thighs and an emptiness in her gut, and she cannot drag herself from bed for almost a month. Bungo gives her time, takes care of their son, telling him stories and making him dinner and guiding his questing fingers away from their bedroom door so Belladonna can grieve. 

When she drags herself from the bedroom, Belladonna wraps herself around Bilbo and won't let him go, and the boy, bless him, let's her cling. And when Bungo comes home, Belladonna begs him. She can't do this anymore, can't live through another loss; she's given him a son and it needs to be enough.

It's not done in the Shire, not done among hobbits, but there are whispers in Bree of healers and back alley doctors who can stop conception for good. It would be a scandal if anyone ever found out, not a Baggins thing at all to do, and Bungo's reputation is on the line already for marrying a Took and for having only one child, but the look on Belladonna's face when she begs him, the grief they both have suffered. He cannot say no. And so Bilbo spends a month with his grandparents so he can accompany his wife to Bree.

Belladonna returns a new hobbit and the shadows leave her face, although she still can be caught with a longing expression when they pass a large family, and her heart breaks when Bilbo asks why he is the only boy in Hobbiton without siblings until he learns not to ask anymore.

She chases away the yearning feeling by challenging Bilbo to tree climbing contests, fills the too-many empty rooms of Bag End with stories of adventure and laughter and tracked-in mud where she can't have children. She ignores the whispers and looks and tells Bungo to do the same when he sighs and scrubs the mud from the floor.

Bilbo is enough and Bungo is enough, and they may be the smallest family in Hobbiton, but they may also be the happiest, even with gossip that trails them in the market, because Bungo kisses her nose every night, and they go to bed without worrying about bloody sheets and tiny graves, and every day is a new adventure.


End file.
